Ranma Beats 12
by RedDesertPhoenix
Summary: Ranma dies... then wakes up.
1. Chapter 1

Ranma Beats ½

(because I suck at titles)

Chapter 1

"Nooo!"

Ranma opened his eyes in shock, glancing around him in panic and fear.

His nightmare slowly faded, and with it he slowly became aware of his surroundings.

He was lying on a bed. Not his bed. Not any of the beds in the Tendo residence either. Actually, looking around, it looked a lot like the bed in the nurses office at Furinken High. He had no idea why he was here. Ramna frowned. Actually, he couldn't remember anything that happened recently. Everything he could remember felt like it had happened weeks ago. He felt around his head for any lumps that might explain his lack of memories, but couldn't find any. There was also no sign of any battle damage to his body. No bruises, no scratches, nothing. And no tears in his clothing either. Which for some reason, wasn't his standard Chinese shirt and pants, but instead was a black school uniform. Why he was dressed in the uniform of some school he'd never seen before was beyond Ranma, and he had more important things to worry about anyway. He got to his feet, and made his way out of the infirmary.

Two hours later, and Ranma was even more confused. He wasn't in Furinken High School any more, that was certain. He was in a high-school, but not like any high-school he'd ever been in before. Superficially, it seemed normal. Maybe ten times larger than Furinken High, but other than that, it was normal. He hadn't yet seen any fights. Hadn't seen any insane teachers or eccentric headmasters. Even the students appeared normal – they all wore the same black uniform he had woken up in, and when he talked to them, they appeared to be model students. No martial arts, no obsessed fiancés, just a normal school.

But the whole place felt wrong to Ranma. It took him a while to work out why. At first, it was just something at the back of his mind. Something that said 'Fake' every time he turned a corner or looked over the campus. Then he started noticing small things that didn't quite add up.

The first he noticed was the large expanse of wilderness surrounding the school.

At first, he had thought the school was on the edge of whatever city he was now in, but after walking around the campus for two hours, he had found the wilderness was visible from every angle. Wherever he was, it wasn't Tokyo. It looked to him like the school had been built in the middle of no-where, for some bizarre reason. He tried leaving the school, but couldn't find the entrance. He could jump over the walls to the school of course, but the wilderness started on the other side. There were no roads leading to the school, no power lines. The whole thing was a little creepy. He had asked the other students where they were, but their answers hadn't been informative. They had all looked at him rather oddly, and answered 'The cafeteria', or 'The library'. He had tried asking them where the school was, but they just looked at him oddly, and walked quickly away. Ranma had never really sympathized with Ryoga much before, but now he knew exactly how the other felt.

The whole 'school in the middle of the wilderness' thing bugged Ranma a little, but it still wasn't enough to explain why the entire place set his teeth on edge. It took him a good hour to work out why, and he almost kicked himself once he worked it out… Or at least he would have if it didn't raise even more questions within him.

As he talked to the different students, he noticed they all had very similar responses to his questions. Oh, they may be phrased slightly differently, and may have a different accent, but they were still the same responses. It was as though they had all been given a prepared script. Ranma didn't believe in conspiracies, especially ones including the entire student body. In his experience, the larger the group of people trying to keep a secret, the faster something incredibly stupid happened, the secret got spilled, and everyone started trying to kill each other again. All the same, he felt he WAS missing something. He finally worked it out when he spoke to a teacher. When the teacher started giving the same answers the students had, he suppressed his irritation. Was the teacher really that oblivious? Ranma checked the teachers aura on impulse, wanting to know if the teacher was lying, or maybe brainwashed somehow…

The teacher didn't have an aura.

Ranma frowned and checked again, but still no aura. Which was of course, impossible. Everyone had an aura. Hell, even dogs and cats had an aura. Anything that was capable of feeling any sort of emotion gave out an aura, but the teacher in front of him didn't.

Ranma frowned, and concentrated again. Beads of sweat collected on his face. He could see swirls of his own aura now, glowing blue lines of determination, tinged with the faint red of his irritation. But around the teacher, nothing. It was possible to suppress your aura, but there were very few people who could suppress it to the point where Ranma couldn't pick it up. To his knowledge, only Happosai and Cologne were capable of that sort of mastery. Ranma was quite sure the teacher in front of him wasn't even at Akanes level, let alone the founders of his art.

If everything remotely sentient had an aura, and the teacher in front of him had none, did that mean it wasn't sentient? Even ghosts had aura's, but that's because they were still capable of feeling. Was the teacher some sort of hallucination? Was everything around him not real?

The teacher was looking at him expectantly, waiting for Ranma's next question. Ranma thanked him for his time and left, deep in thought.

Ranma spent some time after that, walking around the school and checking other students for aura's. It would have been a lot easier if he could check from a distance, but as powerful as he was, he could still only detect someone's aura if they were within a few meters of him. This made the process a rather time consuming business.

It was now approaching dusk, and Ranma was both hungry and fed up. He hadn't detected a single aura among the students, and he still had no answers to where he was why he was here, or why he couldn't remember anything. A pleasant smell wafted in front of his nose, and he sniffed appreciatory. Someone, somewhere, was cooking.

Tired of the mysteries of the place, Ranma followed his nose to the schools sports track, where a group of students were being served dinner from large cooking pots. Ranma had walked through the schools cafeteria a number of times, and wondered a little why the meal was being served outside, rather than indoors, and why it was being served by students rather than the kitchen staff. At this point though, he was too tired to care. A student with bright pink hair handed him a bowl full of fish stew. Ranma absently thanked her, and found a quiet place to eat on the other side of the school.

For some reason, the students serving fish on the sports track wouldn't leave his mind. As he inhaled his dinner, he kept thinking about them. Except for the school being in the middle of the wilderness, everything gave the illusion of being a model school. The students, the teachers, the classrooms… everything.

But the students hadn't fit into that mold at all. They had worn tan-colored uniforms rather than the standard black ones, had dyed their hair… were doing everything but scream 'I don't fit in here', and Ranma had completely missed it. Why?

Ranma got to his feet and raced to the sports track, hoping the students were still there.

As he turned the last corner, he looked anxiously around. The crowd of students in black uniforms were long gone, and most of the students in light brown uniforms had left too - but about half were still washing the cooking utensils. One of the students had bone-white hair all the way down to her waist, and two students had blue hair, one of which was holding a… yes, it was a halberd of some kind. As he approached, he wondered how he could have ever mistaken them for anyone normal.

Ranma grinned. Finally, he could find out what was going on.

END CHAPTER 1

AUTHORS NOTES:

Well I'm not to sure about this fic. I don't think I do 'stream of consciousness' too well, but… meh, I had a go anyway. If you've got any comments, particularly tips on how to improve in this style, your more than welcome to either leave a review or send me a message.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ranma watched horrified from the shadows as the team of students carried their dead comrade away. Were these really people he wanted to get involved with? Yes, part of a martial artists duty involved not shirking a challenge and protecting the weak, but throwing your life away in suicidal attacks was going a bit far.

He watched until the psychotic students had left with the body of their friend, then cautiously walked towards the girl who had challenged them. The girl was lying in a puddle of her own blood, a jagged hole torn through her jacket. She wasn't moving… was so incredibly still… and if she was breathing, Ranma couldn't see any sign of it. He felt his heart sink, but focused his Ki, and checked for her aura anyway.

At first Ranma couldn't detect it, and he sighed, remembering that no one here had aura's… but then he noticed there was one, just very very faint. With her aura in that condition, the girl had to be bordering on death. He lifted her as gently as he could, then sped away, looking for the school nurse.

He spent a good fifteen minutes racing through the school, looking for the teachers sleeping quarters. For a school as big as that one, fifteen minutes wouldn't be enough for most people, but Ranma wasn't a normal person. He must have searched half the school. Oh, he found plenty of teachers quarters, but no one answered the doors when he knocked. And when he tried a more… – direct – approach, he found no one inside the dorms either, just empty apartments.

Ranma and the girl were in one of the empty apartments now. After failing to find anyone to help him, he had decided to do the best he could with the half-remembered healing techniques the old ghoul had tried to drum into him. He set the girl down on the freshly made bed, and looked at her critically. The girl lay there, her blood spreading across the white sheets slowly. Very slowly actually. There wasn't nearly as much blood coming out of her as Ranma thought there would be. In fact, all the blood soaking into the sheets seemed to be coming out of her sodden clothes. The wound in her chest appeared to have stopped bleeding. Which could only mean she didn't have anything left to bleed?

Ranma hurriedly checked the girls aura for life signs… and was confused. The girls aura was a lot more healthy than it had been. A lot more healthy than it had any right to be. Even as he watched, he felt it slowly ebbing it's way back to full health. Twenty minutes ago, the girl had been bordering on death, and now she was merely unconscious.

Which was impossible. No one healed that quickly.

Well, except for him of course, but no one else could heal that quickly.

Since the girl seemed to be recovering without any of his help, Ranma pulled up a chair beside her, and started going over the fight again in his mind.

He had just been about to announce his presence to the group when a student wearing the same uniform as them had limped out of the shadows. A girl with purple hair. She looked like she had been in a fight with a lawnmower, and come off second best. Her clothes had been torn in multiple places, and she was bleeding from several deep cuts. The other students clustered around her, asking what was wrong. Her words hadn't really made any sense to Ranma.

'An angel attacked me'.

Just what the hell was that supposed to mean? There were angels here? That attacked people? He remembered a manga Daisuke had once talked to him about, and wondered briefly if they needed a giant robot to fight it off. But no, if there were things like that around, he would have noticed…

Around about then, the other students started pointing at the top of the nearest building. There was a silhouette up there, right on the edge of the building, staring down at them. It was such a melodramatic pose that Ranma almost mistook the figure for Kuno, before he realized it was much too small… and the figure was feminine to boot. Once it realized they had noticed her, she leapt from the roof, her landing raising a suitably impressive dust-cloud. She smirked, looked around to make sure she had everyone's attention, then finally spoke.

'Everyone here is out playing around at night. Which means… I have to Exact Punishment!'

She promptly drew a sword that she had hidden in her coat sleeves, and charged towards the party. Still hidden in the shadows, Ranma relaxed somewhat. Overly-dramatic lines, melodramatic entrances… Finally, people he could relate to.

In front of him, the girl with the blade was fighting with the girl who had purple hair… who had also pulled a blade from somewhere, and seemed to be feeling a lot better now. Ranma examined the fight critically. Both were quite good, though the girl who had jumped from the roof seemed to have some Ki-based moves which were quite advanced. Still, the injured girl wasn't doing too badly… until the other managed to jump behind her, and pull some sort of whirlwind attack with the blade.

At this point, the girl with purple hair locked up, throwing her hands up in front of her face and screaming. This didn't stop the fight as Ranma had expected though, the girl kept right on coming, slicing through the girls coat and into her arms and torso. Though Ranma noticed with a professional eye that all the cuts were quite shallow. Not that this excused attacking an opponent that had surrendered, not at all…

He was gathering himself to intercept the Kuno-wannabe when a pistol shot rang out, then another. Then an automatic opened up, and soon the air was filled with shots, all streaking in towards the strange girl who had attacked the group. The girl with purple hair used the distraction to get away, and the girl trying to imitate Kuno… just stood there. The bullets streaked in towards her… then seemed to distort around her, and fly off into the building behind her.

Ranma blinked. What sort of martial artists bought guns to a fight? And just what sort of martial artist was able to re-direct them? This was taking Ki-manipulation to a whole new level. Even the Old Goul wasn't that fast…

Ranma was trying to read how the girl was pulling off the distortion technique when one of the students stepped forward. The girl with the white hair. She slid a long blade out of her coat sleeves in the same manner as their attacker had, and Ranma noticed for the first time that the girl who had leapt from the roof looked exactly like her. Twins? Some sort of evil cloning magic?

Ranma leaned forward, eager to see more of the strange girls techniques. The two rushed at each other, blades extended, and…

-SQUEENSH-

Which, by the way, is the sound two swords make when their slid through someones ribcage. The two combatants stood cheek to cheek, so close they looked to be lovers. They stood still for a moment, staring silently at each other, then simultaneously fell backwards, their blades pulling free of each other as they fell. The other students rushed to the pair, talking excitedly amongst themselves. There seemed to be a debate over which of the two was –Their- angel. They seemed to work it out however. One of the students picked her up, and they walked off, without a second glance at the other bleeding girl behind them.

Ranma looked down at the girl lying on the bed. Her uniform was still soaked in blood, but the girl seemed much better. She was now visibly breathing, and didn't seem to have any problems with the blood that should have filled her lungs. She wasn't even unconscious any more, just sleeping peacefully.

Just how could those kids be so cavalier about dealing death anyway? That other girl… the one who looked like this one… had given her own life in order to try and kill her twin. Why? None of the other students had acted that upset at her death either. Were they really that callous? But they hadn't left her behind either. They'd taken her away, taken care of the body… yet not showed any grief or concern for the girl. None of this made any sense. What was it he was missing?

It seemed just when he thought he was about to get answers, all he got was more questions.

He sighed loudly… And the girls eyes flicked open, before focusing on him.

A moment or two passed, then the girls eyes narrowed slightly. She sat up and spoke flatly. 'It is forbidden to be in the girls dorms after sunset. You will have to be punished.'

She stood, and a long, thin blade extended from the sleeve of her jacket.

Ranma had risen to his feet when the girl had sat up. When the blade extended from her arm, he grinned, and fell into a defensive stance. Finally, something he didn't have to think about!

AUTHORS NOTES:

Well the first chapter turned out to be a lot more popular than I had expected. Thank you for the reviews, some of the comments gave me ideas I could use for this chapter. I havn't had this much fun writing fanfiction for years, so I'll definitely be continuing.


	3. Chapter 3

A moment or two passed, then the girls eyes narrowed slightly. She sat up and spoke flatly. 'It is forbidden to be in the girls dorms after sunset. You will have to be punished.'

She stood, and a long, thin blade extended from the sleeve of her jacket.

Ranma had risen to his feet when the girl had sat up. When the blade extended from her arm, he grinned, and fell into a defensive stance. Finally, something he didn't have to think about!

The girls eyes flickered to the bloodied bed beneath her and she stopped, puzzled. Her eyes flickered around the room, and she paused, remembering. The hand without a blade came down unconsciously to rub her chest. After a moment, she looked up and stared at Ranma.

'It is also forbidden to be in the teachers quarters… at any time. Why are you here? And why did you bring me?'

'I took you here after that girl stabbed you. You were hurt pretty bad. I was looking for a teacher, but…'

Ranma scratched his chin. 'They're all on vacation or something. There's no one here.'

The girl examined him for a moment, searching his face for any sign of deceit. She was apparently happy with what she saw, as the blade extending from her arm shimmered and disappeared.

'Thank you for your help, but I had no need of it. You seem to be new here. Follow the rules and you won't be punished.'

She turned to go.

She was almost at the door before Ranma grabbed her shoulder.

'Wait, you didn't need my help? You were stabbed through the CHEST! I saved your life! Just what sort of thanks was that?'

The girl shrugged off his hand, and turned to face him, speaking coldly. 'You didn't save my life, I'm already dead.

Now most people might have a certain amount of skepticism towards someone making this claim. Ranma had been running into odd magical artifacts and mythical creatures every second week for as long as he could remember. Also, the girl had just recovered from a lethal injury in under an hour. That was more than just a little convincing.

'So… what are you? A vampire? A zombie? A ghost?'

Ranma had subconsciously fallen into a defensive stance again. He had run into a few ghosts in his time, and all but one had been unfriendly.

'Wait, that would explain why the students were attacking you. Someone used magic on that other girl, and you came out as her evil ghost clone, didn't you?

The girl's ice queen look cracked, and a brief look of confusion flittered across her face.

'Wha… No! why would you think that?'

Ranma shrugged.

'Happened to me once.

The girl regained her composure, and turned to go. Once again however, Ranma stopped her. 'Wait! Before you go, can you at least tell me what's going on? I woke up in the infirmary this morning. I don't remember anything.'

A nod. 'That sometimes happens.'

She paused. 'I'm a clone of the girl who stabbed me. She is the student council president and created me to assist her with some unruly students. She seems to have joined with the delinquents however.'

Ranma narrowed his eyes. 'Wait a minute, you attacked them first, didn't you? Since when did breaking curfew deserve a sword through the chest?'

The girl glared at him, before finally answering. 'I only stabbed that girl through the chest when she was doing the same to me. The punishment I had planned for the other students would not have been lethal. How I conduct myself is none of your concern however.

The girls callous attitude was rapidly beginning to irritate Ranma.

'Well actually it is. Even if you can't die, you probably killed that girl you stabbed back there, and you don't even seem to care. If you're that much a danger to everyone, I'm going to have to stop you.'

The girls cold eyes glared into him. 'You do not know enough for your opinion to matter. This business does not concern you. I also doubt that I killed her. Speaking of which, I have some unfinished business to attend to. Please excuse me.'

She turned to go again, and Ranma once more went to grab her shoulder. Before his hand even got close though, the blade extended from the girls arm again, and she twisted, stabbing out towards Ranma's chest. Anyone else would be dead, but Ranma had been dealing with similar attacks for years now. He twisted to the side, the blade slicing through the material of his jacket. The girl had over-extended herself, and Ranma was able to grab her arm and flip her over his shoulder back into the room. She landed like a cat, flat and on all fours.

She leapt at him again, blade extended. Ranma's estimation of her skills lowered. Who would try the same trick again when it hadn't worked the first time? But as she approached, she shimmered and seemed to vanish. Ranma remembered seeing this from the other fight, and spun to see the girl had appeared behind him. She was quickly in range, slicing at him with strikes which were much less powerful this time, but faster and harder to dodge. Ranma moved to the defensive, backing quickly into the room while the girl continued her slicing attacks. With each strike, Ranma sidestepped, ducked or in one case, back flipped, but he was being forced back, and was quickly running out of room.

With the girls last strike, he tripped and landed on the bed. The girl smiled in victory, and bought the blade in a vicious overhead swing. Ranma raised his feet into the air, and the blade shuddered to a stop between the rubber soles of his shoes. She tugged futily at the blade, but his shoes refused to part, leaving the girls blade stuck. Ranma rolled forward, forcing the girl to her knees as Ranma bought his shoes to ground level.

The blade extended from her wrist, and seemed to be strapped to her forearm, so by controlling the blade, Ranma could control her arm. The girl stopped straining at her arm, but didn't seem to be beaten. A shimmering around her other arm was the only warning Ranma had. A second blade appeared, and she swung violently at his legs. Ranma yelped, and released her sword, kicking out at her chest to throw her off balance. The girl was knocked backwards, and her strike spoiled. A feeling of wetness made Ranma look down, and he realized her attack hadn't completely missed. One of his trouser legs now hung in tatters, and a steady line of red was making its way down his leg

The girl rushed at him again, and he kicked off the floor, rolled backwards across the bed and straight out the open window. The girl leapt out after him, coming down like a bolt from the heavens, twin blades extended in front of her, ready to skewer Ranma where he landed. A one story drop was nothing for someone proficient in an art specializing in mid-air combat though, and Ranma didn't sprawl when he landed, as she must have expected him to. When he landed, he absorbed the energy in a crouch and sprang backward in a Ki-assisted leap, leaving the girl to impale her swords into the ground beneath him a split second after he had left.

Ranma landed on the roof of a shade structure across from her, and turned to watch as she pulled her blades free of the ground. Except she didn't really… They shimmered, she moved her arms, and they reformed, solid once more and no longer embedded.

The girl leapt for his position, and this time Ranma leapt to meet her, foot extended for a kick. The girl slashed as she passed, but Ranma twisted his body in a way that should have been impossible, before grabbing her wrists and throwing her at the ground. As before, she landed on all fours, flattening on impact before standing. Ranma landed a second later, and fell into a stance, smiling cockily. The girl was well armed, agile and skilled… but Ranma had faced down a God! His smile flickered somewhat as he wondered where that last thought had come from. He hadn't ever fought a god had he? The girl charged him again, and he stored the thought away as something of think of at another time.

Having given up on leaping at him, the girl just ran at him this time, breaking into the whirlwind of blades as she approached striking distance. With two blades, there was no way Ranma could sidestep. He leapt backwards, but the girl followed him, somehow keeping up her whirlwind attack while in the air. Ranma rolled to the side the second he landed, blades slicing where he had been moments before. He leapt once more, but this time not fast enough. A blade clipped his leg, and the change in momentum messed up his landing. He landed heavily, and was unable to evade the girl as she came down after him. The best he could manage was to roll out of the way as the blades came down on either side of him.

Ranma was hurting from the landing, not to mention whatever damage that sword had done to his leg. The girl didn't seem to be tiring at all though. It was all Ranma could do just to avoid her strikes. Every time he tried to roll away and spring to his feet, there was a blade coming in at him and he had to drop down again.

Although the girl was managing to prevent him from getting back up, that didn't mean he was out… Ranma kicked his one good leg out, and the girl dropped with a cry, her ankle swept from under her. She went to roll to her feet, but Ranma was over her before she could manage it. The swords were a disadvantage when it came to close quarters grappling like this, since they extended straight from the wrists, and restrained the full movements of the girls arms. Ranma very quickly had the girl pinned. Pins weren't something his art specialized in, but he was nothing if not adaptive, and if it worked…

The girl struggled and strained under him, but to no avail. For some reason it didn't occur to her to drop her swords. It wasn't all that easy for Ranma though. The girl had some incredible strength, seeming to be Ryoga's counterpart. Still not enough to budge Ranma though, especially when he put her in a hold where the more she tried to escape it, the more she twisted her arm. Finally, she gave out an exasperated cry, and went limp. Ranma went quiet, expecting the girl to give up. And indeed, she was whispering something, but it didn't make any sense. She'd said something like 'harmony'... Just what was that supposed to mean? Was it the name of an attack, the name of a friend, or…

Ranma was interrupted from his musings as a shadow fell over him. He looked up, and saw another copy of the girl he'd been fighting standing above him, glaring down at him evilly with her blades extended.

Ranma felt his mouth drop open.

'Oh $^$'

AUTHORS NOTES

I noticed from the anime that the way the blades extend from Kanade's wrists would leave rather large openings in her fighting style, though it doesn't seem to affect her in the anime itself.

Regarding AnotherDuck's review: Yes, it was bothering me a little that Ranma has been so OOC in the first two chapters, but hopefully with this one, he's get back on track. I don't think he'd have too much trouble with fighting someone who's armed, after all, he takes on Kuno and Mouse on a regular basis. Although they aren't trying to kill him (Despite what they may claim).

This won't be an epic, it'll probably finish up with about 6 chapters. I start Uni in a month, and I doubt I'll have any time for writing after that.

On an unrelated (to this story anyway) note, 10 episodes of the anime have so far been released… and I've been very disappointed. The premise is great, most of the characters are brilliant, but the storyline itself is very hit and miss. Still, it hasn't finished yet, so hopefully it'll have a brilliant ending to make up for it.


	4. Chapter 4

Ranma looked up, and saw another copy of the girl he had in a hold standing above him, glaring down at him evilly with her blades extended.

Ranma felt his mouth drop open.

'Oh $^&*'

Ranma abandoned his hold on the girl beneath him and rolled backward to his feet. The newcomer stood her ground while the first girl got to her feet, and they turned to face Ranma.

Ranma stood facing them, the cocky grin he had been wearing for most of this fight no longer present. He was already slightly injured, and the other girl was at about his skill level. He didn't like his chances fighting the two of them, and losing meant one of those swords through his chest. . He couldn't just leave them though, and not just because Ranma Saotome never backs down. There was that other girl to think about too, the one the clone had already stabbed.

The two clones stood there, waiting for him. They seemed to be half expecting him to run away, and looked ready to let him go. But then, the clone hadn't really wanted the fight in the first place, Ranma remembered. They just wanted him out of the way so they could kill off their originator. Which just wasn't something he was going to let happen.

Of course, no matter their skill level, no matter that they outnumbered him, there was one thing they didn't know. One thing they hadn't taken into account… One thing Ranma himself had almost forgotten, even if only for a second.

He didn't' lose. Oh, he might lose the first fight if the opponent was especially tough and if there wasn't high stakes on the outcome, but he always won in the end.

Always.

Without fail.

Ramna's grin reappeared. With his confidence back, he could see several ways he could win the fight, even with two of the clones. Still, he did feel a bit guilty about what he was about to do… Even if they were blood-thirsty, evil clones, he should still try to end things peacefully. So what could he say to end this?

'Theres no way you can beat me, even with two of you. You'd be better off giving up, going home and playing with your dolls.'

He paused for breath. The girls moved into a stance, and raised their blades into a defensive position.

'So, uh… do you give up?'

The girls didn't even bother with a reply, just growled at him and leapt. Ranma never had been known for his diplomacy skills.

Ranma was on the defensive in seconds, backpedalling, rolling to the side, dodging the blades with the best of his ability. His body almost went up to amaguriken speeds, twisting and turning… yet it still wasn't enough. Every second or two, one of the girls blade would make it past his defenses and slice across his arm, against his back, or down his leg. Ranma was soon covered in these cuts, and the blood oozing out was turning his skin more red than pink. Yet the cocky grin never left his face. If anything, it had only grown wider. The girls paused for a minute, examining him.

He stood there, covered in blood, his clothing in tatters… grinning at them.

'What's the matter, given up already? I'm sure you can do better than that.'

The girls looked at each other… then attacked once more. Ranma waited till they were almost on him, then took to the skies, leaping two stories straight into the air in a ki-assisted jump. The girls leapt after him, ready to catch him on his return to earth. It was beyond them why Ranma was so confident. The boy was in a mess. His clothing – what was left of it – was completely soaked in his blood, and stuck to his frame. Every movement he made opened his cuts and caused them to bleed more. In the air as he was, there was no way he could dodge or block both the girls attacks when he started coming down again… and yet that cocky grin, his body language… everything about him told the girls his confidence was at an all time high. Did he have some trick up his sleeve, or was he just an idiot?

Then Ranma reached the peak of his climb, and started falling once more. The girls readied their blades, and…

'Moko Takabisha!'

The girls never even saw it coming. The confidence-fueled ki-blast shot from Ranma's palm and tore through the pair, before impacting on the ground below. The two charred and unconscious girls hit the side of the new crater before sliding down to a stop at the bottom.

Ranma landed a few seconds after the defeated girls, and glanced at them scornfully. 'The important thing you need to know about me girls, is Ranma Saotome Don't Lose.'

And with that, he turned his back on them and walked away.

Once around the corner, Ranma's cocky demeanor disappeared, and he sagged against the wall. While none of the cuts were deep enough to affect his ability to fight, they were a source of constant, low-level pain coming from literally _everywhere_. Now the fight had been won, he could concentrate on recovery. He could already feel the cuts slowly healing. He had been building his ki-reserves since he was six, and there weren't many injuries that gave him problems for long. Even broken bones healed in a week if he spent a few hours a day focusing his ki in a certain way. The best thing for his current injuries were sleep though, moving around would just open his cuts further.

It was now late, the day had been long, confusing, tiring and painful. Ranma was ready for sleep even without the injuries. He sighed to himself, and headed off to find an empty room in the mens dormitories. Within twenty minutes, he was asleep.

Ranma woke early. His dreams had been confused, filled with half-forgotten memories of some past fight. Ranma had been fighting to get Akane back from yet another kidnap attempt, and his opponent had been throwing powerful ki-blasts around - he couldn't remember any more. The half forgotten dream frustrated Ranma, as it felt important for some reason. It niggled away at the edge of his awareness until some breakfast in the cafeteria succeeded in driving the remnants of the dream from his mind. Once fully sated, he turned his mind to the problem of where he was.

He'd now spent a day in this place, and he wasn't much closer to finding out what was going on. Perhaps if he could track down the students from last night? The sane ones? The clones had disappeared from the crater by the time he had walked past this morning. In fact, the crater had disappeared as well. Perhaps they had the same groundkeepers as Furinken High? Ranma sometimes wondered if there was a martial-arts building-damage restoration group following him around. It would explain why none of the damage he and his friends inflicted on the city seemed to last longer than a day.

But back to the subject at hand… He didn't know where the clones were, and didn't really want to meet them again anyway, but maybe he could find the students the clone had been fighting?

He didn't really know anything about them, except one of them had been either killed or badly injured. So where would they have taken her? There wasn't any hospitals around, there wasn't anything outside of the school at all. Which meant she must have been taken somewhere within the school grounds. Where would you take someone seriously injured at school?

Five minutes later, Ranma knocked on the door of the school infirmary. When no-one replied, he let himself in, remembering he had been alone when he woke here yesterday too. Perhaps the school nurse was on holidays?

The room was empty, though there was a girl sleeping on one of the beds.

As he approached, he recognized the girl from last night. She was lying unconscious, her chest rising and falling regularly. Her uniform had a large cut near the chest, and had been soaked right through with the girls blood. The blood had dried, and her uniform was now black and stiff as old leather. Ranma focused his ki and read her aura.

He frowned. The girl was completely healthy. There wasn't any injury under that cut in her top, and she wasn't even unconscious, just sleeping. He had assumed the clone had gained massive healing abilities as part of whatever magic had been used to clone it, but it appeared the original could heal too.

He concentrated, and checked the girls aura again, examining it at a deeper level now he was sure she was ok. A persons aura could tell you all sorts of things about them. Their health and their feelings were the easiest to read, but if you were good, you could draw some very accurate conclusions about their personalities and skills too.

The colors in the girls aura were muted and greyish, which is normal for someone who is sleeping. Generally, the less conscious a person is, the less emotions their capable of feeling. Aquamarine-blue was the strongest color present, showing she had most likely been driven by a desire to protect her friends in the fight last night. The aura Ranma had seen in the clone had been an angry red, much like Akane's often was. Other than that, the clones aura was almost identical to this girls. Usually, everyone's aura appeared different, reflecting how their mind was structured, and could be used much like a fingerprint. If the two girls minds hadn't yet diverged enough for their aura's to take separate forms, the evil version could have only been cloned recently, perhaps within the last few days.

Ranma wondered absently about how that affected things. Perhaps the magic wouldn't last too long, and the clones would disappear? Perhaps there was an easy way to get rid of the evil doppelgangers? But that was all a side issue, Ranma reminded himself. The reason he came here was to find out… well, to find out why he had come here. And why his memory was missing.

He continued looking at the girl's aura, attempting to puzzle out the nuances of her aura. Ranma was far from being a master at aura reading, stopping his lessons once he learned enough to help him size up an opponent. The only people he knew who he would have called masters were Cologne and Happosai. They could just about tell what you had for breakfast two days ago. Ranma shivered slightly. Both the Old Ghoul and Happosai creeped him out, though for very different reasons. But he was getting distracted again…

He looked again at the colored section of her aura. The color was much less muted than it had been a few minutes ago, making it easier for Ranma to pick up patterns, such as the way the colored section of her aura ended sharply on a thick black and white border. Beyond the border, her aura was leached of color, made into a black, white and grey pattern of lines, intersections, squares and corners, which slowly grew, twisted and evolved as Ranma watched.

The color represented emotion, so the border perhaps showed the girl always held her emotions in check? Or did it mean a large part of the girl wasn't human, but some sort of machine? The sharp angles didn't look natural to Ranma, reminding him faintly of logic and mathematics.

The colored part of the girls aura was still aquamarine-blue. Almost solidly that color. Which was unusual. Very few people were only driven by one feeling. Usually they were pulled in many different directions. Loyalty to friends, greed, lust… a myriad of different emotions, and it was usually very hard to tell which one was dominant in an individual, making their aura's a patchwork of bright colors. This girl only had one solid color though. Was she even human? Ranma frowned. There were many other things she could be beside human, but he just didn't have the experience to know what was going on here. He caught himself wishing the Old Ghoul was here, and wondered how things had got that bad. Surely he was capable of finding out what was happening by himself?

Then a thin line of dark-green caught his eye, woven in with the rest of her aura. The colors were much more vibrant now, which is what bought the strand to his attention. It was a thin little strand, perhaps half a centimeter across, winding it's way through a thick rope of aquamarine blue floating in front of the girls face. Ranma got down on his knee's and knelt over the girl, examining the strand closer.

It floated there, slightly transparent, pulsating slowly. Ranma concentrated harder, and the strands grew more solid for him. He felt the slight pain of a headache coming on, but kept his concentration. He could make out more details of the green strand now. It was woven in with the rest, but was a lot denser than the other strands. The other strands were all made up of five or six rather coarse threads, perhaps one or two millimeters thick each, but the green thread was made up of at least twenty threads. And they weren't all green either, Ranma realized. It was mostly green, but there were other colors in there too. He leaned closer, until the strand was only a few inches in front of his face.

The rope of aquamarine filled his vision now, the strand standing out clearly. His headache was also starting to take on definition, but that wasn't something he was interested in at the moment. The strand had all sorts of threads – red ones, gold ones, even ones that were slowly changing color as he watched. This one strand was much closer to how someone's aura normally looked. Did this mean the girls personality was locked within her? Or did she just have a very small personality, dominated by the desire to protect her friends? Ranma sighed. He just didn't know enough to be able to tell. The colors suddenly brightened, vividly vibrant, and Ranma had just enough time to comprehend what that meant…

And the girl opened her eyes.

Ranma had been getting himself into these situations for years, and it was beyond him why he couldn't see them coming. It was always Akane walking in on him in the bath, or some fiancé sneaking her way into his bed, or… any number of different things. He'd sworn on more than one occasion that it was the last time, that he'd gone through these things enough now to recognize the signs and bolt while he still could.

Yet here he was. Kneeling over a girl with his face hovering just above hers, looking for all the world like he was a few seconds away from kissing her.

And she had just woken up.

Ranma backpedaled violently, slamming into the wall behind him and stammering about how it wasn't what it looked like. The girl…

The girl just lay there, not doing anything. She turned her head so she could still see him, but that was all.

Ranma slowly calmed down once he realized he wasn't about to be pummeled for yet another misunderstanding, and sneaked a quick peak at her aura.

No anger. No anger at all. The colored part of her aura had traces of yellow, but her surprise was fading fast, and the aquamarine hue was soon dominant once more.

Ranma's shock was gone, replaced with puzzlement. The girl had woken with some guy leaning over her, and hadn't gotten angry? Had only been mildly surprised? Hadn't been scared at all? Just what sort of girl was she?

She was still in the same position as before, just staring at him, waiting for him to say something.

Well, he could at least manage that much. Ranma gathered his composure, and bowed.

'Uh… I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this.'

AUTHORS NOTES

It'll be nice to start using Kanada's name now. There's only so many times I can use 'girl' before it starts getting old.

My muse must have gone on a holiday, as the first half of this chapter took longer than a week for me to write. I think it must have returned some time today though, as I wrote the 2nd half in one evening.


	5. Chapter 5

Ranma bowed.  
'I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this.'

The girl nodded.

'So… uh… who are you?

The girl was silent for a moment, apparently deciding if she should trust him. After a few seconds of indecision, the girl quietly introduced herself.

'Kanada Tachibana? The names a little soft for a martial artist isn't it?

'I'm not a martial artist. I like my name.'

The girl was as soft-spoken as Kasumi, yet Ranma could still hear the slight hurt in the girls voice. Why were girls always so sensitive about these things?

'So uh, I saw your fight last night. That other girl was a clone of you, wasn't she?'

A nod.

'Well I talked to her after the fight. She's still angry. Last I saw, she was out hunting for you, so you better watch out.'

The girls eyes narrowed slightly, and she sat up and pulled her arms free of the bedclothes.

'Are you threatening me? Why would you take her side?'

And Ranma realized he'd blundered once more. He'd been standing over her when she woke up, had insulted her name and now he'd just admitted to being on speaking terms with someone who had nearly killed her. The girl now definitely had her guard up, and looked ready to either bolt or attack at any sudden movement on his part.

Ranma kept talking, trying to defuse the situation.

'I spoke with her, but we're not friends. I helped her after your fight, I talked to her, then she tried to kill me for no reason at all! She's not very friendly, is she?'

The girl lowered her guard somewhat. 'You needn't worry. She can't kill you.'

Ranma grinned 'Oh, I know that. She was good, but not good enough to beat –me-.'

Tachibana blinked. Was the boy really that arrogant? The clone had the same level of skill as she did, and even the student with the 5th dan in Judo couldn't slow her down. There was no way this… Ranma… could be a challenge.

'Uh… by the way Kanada, where am I? I woke up here yesterday, and I've no idea what's going on.'

'My name is Kanade.' She said mildly. 'Not Kanada. Perhaps your hearing needs to be checked?

Ranma frowned. So he'd gotten her name wrong too? This just wasn't one of his days.

'Yeah, so, um… can you tell me where I am?'

The girl looked at him. She was well aware that the casual conversations she'd had with the other new arrivals to the school had led to much of the misunderstandings that had arisen. She had spent many hours pondering how she should have approached them. Here was her opportunity to use that. She thought carefully, modifying what she should have said to the others to fit the current circumstances, and finally opened her mouth to speak.

'You beat me last time with a cheap shot. It won't happen twice. Get in my way this time and I'll cut you to pieces.'

Ranma was somewhat confused. The voice was Kanade's, yet her mouth wasn't moving, and the words seemed to be coming from over his shoulder.

Ranma turned. The Tachibana clone was standing in the doorway glaring at him. The girl was furious, almost shaking with rage.

Tachibana spoke, inadvertently preventing Ranma from putting his foot in it any further.

'I am not breaking school rules. What issue do you have with me?'

The clone was furious, on the verge of loosing all control. Yet for whatever reason, she seemed content to talk for now.

'You seek to absorb me back into you. Your purpose… Our purpose as the student council president is to maintain the order of the school. You created me for that task, so that's what I'll do. I'll do all in my power to succeed, even if it's You standing in my way.

Tachibana cocked her head.

'I am no longer the student council president. The task of upholding the schools regulations no longer falls to me. Neither of us has the authority to enforce the rules, and your attempts to do so only undermine the authority of those who do.

This made the clone pause.

All trace of emotions on the Tachibana girl had disappeared, and now she was doing a very good Nabiki impersonation. Ranma wondered how much of this was acting and how much was real.

'You were created when I was defusing the traps defending the weapons manufacturing plant under the school, correct? I had assumed you had been re-absorbed shortly after. Why did you wait until last night to show yourself?'

The clones eyes narrowed. 'Yes, You created me and others so even if one of us was destroyed by a trap, we could still continue on. How many times did you send us in to take the fall for you? How many times did we get blown up, crushed or shot so you could keep going? But I didn't mind. without the weapons factory the delinquents would lose most of their ability to cause trouble, and a few hours pain was worth the peace we would bring to the school.

Even when the workers in the factory destroyed it by their own hand, and buried me in the rubble it was ok, because I knew what it's destruction would mean for the school. It took me weeks to get out of the ruins. Weeks of being trapped under the rubble, not being able to see, not being able to eat, trying desperately to escape… and when I finally do, what do I find? The students are still causing trouble, and You are helping them! Everything you've worked for, Everything I've worked for is for nothing. You betrayed your cause, you betrayed all the sacrifices, and you betrayed me. I won't be re-absorbed, because then there would be NOTHING to uphold the school. You may have betrayed everything you once stood for, but I NEVER will!'

The girl paused for breath, panting.

'And if this means I have to go through you to do so, then that's what I'll do!'

And she leapt forward, blades sliding into place as she flew.

AUTHORS NOTES

Well that wasn't especially long, yet it still took me forever to write. Good news is, I more or less know how the rest of the story is going to go, so I don't have to think about it. Bad news is, I move town in 3 days and I'll be going to uni after that, so I won't have much time to write it.


	6. Chapter 6

'You may have betrayed everything you once stood for, but I NEVER will, and if this means I have to go through you to do so, then that's what I'll do!'

The Tachibana clone leapt forward, blades sliding into place as she flew. Although her target was Kanade, Ranma was in her way and he had no intention of moving. He'd been expecting her to attack, and this time he had a counter. He'd used the Bakusai Tenketsu to destroy some of Mouse's weapons in the past and it was beyond him why he hadn't remembered to use it last night. But at least he remembered it now…

As the girl came into range, her swords slid towards his body, but as fast as the clone was, Ranma was faster. He twisted to the side as the blade passed by him and slammed his finger into the blade, shaping his ki into a single point through the tip of his finger. The ki surged through the tip of his finger in a surge of power, roared into the blade, which… … didn't shatter. It only took Ranma a split second to recover from his surprise, but that was enough for the clone to take back the initiative. Ranma ducked from a lightning fast swing, and several strands of black hair floated to the ground, testament to the swords sharpness. The girl followed up and Ranma was once more put on the defensive, sliding to the side, rolling backwards… Then Kanade was at his side, and the clone had to break off her attack, crossing her blades above her to block the girl's vicious overhead swing.

With the girls blade locked by Kanade's block, Ranma kicked at the clones leg, and she backflipped out of range, landing in the hallway.

The combatants paused for a few seconds, and Ranma used the opportunity to examine the girls aura. He still needed to concentrate when looking at aura's, so wasn't able to do it while fighting, but short breaks like this one were perfect. The girls aura was an angry red, pulsating in thick strands around her body. The adrenaline pumping through the girls system meant the aura was much larger than it would normally be, though still a long way from being powerful enough to bleed it's way into the visible spectrum. What interested Ranma however, was the way the aura was emitted from the girls blades as well. Aura's were only ever emitted from living things, and this didn't extend to the clothes they wore or the weapons they were holding. He had thought the girl had used some form of ki-manipulation to prevent the shattering of her blade, but what he was seeing seemed to indicate that the blades weren't actually blades at all, but living extensions of the girls arm. Since the Bakusai Tenketsu didn't work on living tissue, it hadn't had any effect.

Extending living blades from your arm was shapeshifting, and ki-manipulation wasn't capable of changing a body's shape. Which meant… Ranma cursed. Only magic could do things like that, and magic always meant trouble. Always.

The only martial artists he knew capable of using magic were Happosai and Cologne. Was the clone really that advanced? The clone hadn't seemed anywhere near that level when Ranma had fought her earlier. Was it holding back, or just a weaker mage?

And now that he thought about it, was the clone the only one with magic? Kanada had those blades too, didn't she? A sideways glance at Kanade confirmed her blades too were extensions of her arm, rather than swords hidden up her sleeve like he had first assumed. The tightly woven strands of blue slowly pulsing out of the blade kind of confirmed it. Once this was over, he'd have to have a long chat with the girl and find out exactly what was going on.

Ranma wondered absently why the clone hadn't attacked again. Was she sizing them up? Thinking over what they'd said? Perhaps Kanade… He didn't get to finish the thought, as the windows behind him exploded, two blurred forms breaking through the glass.. He turned to see two more clones shaking the splintered glass off and getting to their feet. The three clones took up stances around their two opponents, and the original clone spoke to Ranma.

'You can still walk away. My fight is with HER' the clone said, pointing to Kanade.

'Heh, Like hell I will. It's a martial arts duty to stand against evil. Just walk away and I won't need to beat you again.'

Only the clones voice showed her irritation.  
'What makes you sure I'm evil? I'm here to uphold peace, to maintain order. The rules of this place are here so people can be happy together. I'm enforcing those rules. How does that make me evil?'

Ranma frowned.  
'You just want everyone to be happy? That confuses me a bit, see. Which part of stabbing people through the chest makes them happy?'

The girl glared at him.  
'Kanade and I are supposed to keep order, but now she's stopping me from doing that. I had to stab her, she was preventing me from punishing the others. So what if I hurt one person, if it means everyone else ends up happy? She deserves it anyway!'

Kande sighed, then spoke quietly.  
'I was maintaining the order of the school because I thought it would make everyone happy. I thought if the students went to classes and had the chance to have a normal childhood, they would find peace and be able to move on. The students of class SSS don't want that. Forcing them to follow the school rules was only making their lives miserable. I have to help them with their dreams, not force them to live mine.

The clones twitched.  
'That's not true! They might think their dreams will bring them happiness, but their wrong! People are social, and by breaking the rules of the school, by not attending classes, by not going to clubs and the sporting events, they're cutting themselves off from everyone around them. Their cutting off their chances of meeting people and making friends. No one can be happy alone! They may hate me now. They may be fighting against me with everything they have, but once I've taught them how to fit in with everyone, they'll thank me for it.

Kanade spoke again.  
'But the students aren't lonely. The students aren't outcast. Yes, all the students from that class rebel against the school's rules. But they're all friends with each other. They may not fit in with the school, but they fit in with each other. They have their own group, with it's own rules, and these rules they do follow.'

The clone whirled.  
'You Shut Up! How can you say that? After everything we've been through? Everything we've fought for? Your really willing to throw all that away?

Her eyes narrowed.  
'How could you change your mind so quickly, anyway? What could happen that would make you take their side?

Kanada said nothing, though a faint blush crossed her cheeks. Ranma replied for her, his usual foot-in-mouth deserting him for once.

'You say your doing this to make people happy. You say your fighting to restore peace. Your not fighting for any of that but. All you're really fighting for is to get back at Kanade for betraying you. I know your really pissed, but you gotta know, things will only get worse if you kill her.

The clone paused at his last words, and gave him a strange look.

Ranma returned the look.  
'What?'

'You still don't know what this place is, do you?

Ranma shrugged.  
'I may not know much about what's going on here, that's true. But I know I'd rather die than team up with some stupid girl who goes around trying to kill everyone who annoys her.'

The clone narrowed her eyes and answered angrily 'You're already Dead!'

Ranma laughed.  
'You couldn't kill me on your best day'

The clone screamed with rage while the two clones that had burst through the window starting their own attack.

There wasn't time to think, Ranma just had to act. Thankfully, that's something he was good at. With the two clones charging from behind, he leapt at the clone in the hallway. The girl stuck out her swords, apparently expecting him to impale himself on them. Instead he kicked out at the flat of the blade, spinning the girl off balance. While she was still recovering he ran into her and they both tumbled to the floor. Kanade ran past and escaped down the hallway, looking over her shoulder to see if he would make it. The two clones tried to jump over the bodies blocking the doorway, but Ranma lifted the first clone up into their way, and all three went down in a heap. Ranma rolled backwards as they came down, and was soon running after Kanade.

Half an hour later, and Ranma was carefully peering out of the window of an abandoned classroom. He could see the clones outside searching for Kanade and him. There wasn't just three of them any more. It looked like there were at least twenty clones, and more were being created every few minutes. After making sure none of the clones outside were heading in their direction, Ranma turned to face Kanade.

'Ok, there's too many of them to fight now. Even three of them was too many. You created these clones didn't you? You must know of some way of getting rid of them.'

The girl nodded. 'In order to re-absorb the clones, we need to be in contact.'

Ranma looked surprised. 'Really? That easy?'

Ranma grabbed her hand.

'Ok, now what?'

Kanade looked at him silently.

'Oh, you meant the clones...'

Ranma chuckled in embarrassment, releasing her hand. A thought occurred to him, and he stopped chuckling.

'Hey, if you gotta be touching em to absorb them, does that mean there's no way to get rid of all the clones at once?'

The girl shook her head.

'So… to absorb each one, we'd have to beat it in a fight first. And they can create more clones in the meantime?'

Kanade nodded.  
'Yes. When I created the re-absorb ability, I did not foresee this being a problem. I can alter the program so I can absorb all the clones from a distance, but I need access to my room and several hours to create a new ability.'

She looked outside, where two clones were prying into some bushes some distance away.  
'And at the moment I cannot get to my room undetected.'

Ranma frowned.  
'So if I managed to draw them all off, you'd be able to get to your room and absorb them all at once?'

Kanade nodded. 'But… They won't follow you. Their only after me. You can't draw them away.'

'What if we both went then? They'd follow you, then when their far enough away, I'd hold them off while you made your way back here. Would that work?

'Yes. I know a place where no damage would be done to the school. We shall lead them there. However…

Kanade paused.  
'You are a good fighter, but even one of my clones is almost your equal. Can you really hold off that many long enough for me to get back here?'

Ranma's trademark cocky grin surfaced.

'You ain't seen the half of it lady. I didn't use all my tricks in the building cause I didn't want to bring it down on top of us, but out in the open I can hold my own, no matter how many there are!'

Kanade shrugged, as much to say 'your funeral.'  
'We should go.'

Kanade started walking to the door, and Ranma followed.

'Hey Kanade, where is this place then?'

Kanade opened the door and turned to look at him.

'Guild.'

AUTHORS NOTES

Well I hate to leave it hanging just before the climax, but Uni is heating up and I'm not going to have much time at all for any further chapters. At this point, it might be a few months for the remaining chapters. The good news is there's only 1 or 2 chapters left.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Ramna and Kanade sped onto the oval, a growing number of clones behind them. Ramna snatched a glance at the at the crowd behind him and yelled at Kanade 'I hope you know where your going'.

Kanade didn't even reply, just pointed to the gym storage room at the other side of the oval. By the time they had finished crossing, the clones were about halfway across. There were a few out the front, who had spotted the pair and given chase first, but the majority of the clones were in a dense pack a few meters behind the leaders. There must have been at least a hundred clones, and there were still more joining the hunt.

The locked door of the storage room didn't' even slow them down. A Ki-infused kick from Ramna sent it shooting across the room where it slammed into the opposite wall. Ramna wasn't sure what Kanade wanted with the room, but she seemed to know what she was doing. He moved back to the entrance, while Kanade started moving things around behind him.

The leading clone was nearly at the door and leapt at Ranma, blades extended. Ranma smirked. Taking to the air in a fight against him was always a mistake. The girls blade was almost at his chest when a small moko takabisha shot from his hands. The girls expression was almost comical as she shot backwards, bowling over the clones too close behind her to dodge. She finally landed and rolled to a stop at the edge of the main crowd of clones… which were quite closer than Ranma would have liked.

Ranma kept his eyes on their approach, yelling behind him 'Kanade, whatever your doing, Hurry!'

He heard a soft 'It's done', and Ranma turned and raced back into the storage room, the clones almost at his heels. There was no sign of Kanade, but there was a large open trapdoor at the other end of the room. Without thinking about how deep it may be, he dove for the hole.

He landed at the bottom of the vertical shaft and sprang to one side, narrowly avoiding the attack of the clone that had followed him down. Kanade had been waiting for it though, and swung her blade at it while the clone's defenses were still open. The clone twisted to avoid the blade but was unsuccessful, the blades digging deep into her arm. The clone gave a sharp cry, before clutching her arm in pain falling away from Tachibana. A sudden darkening of the light from the manhole signaled the arrival of more clones, so Kanade and Ranma fled down the hallway, leaving the injured clone whimpering to itself.

It was an hour later, and Ranma was beginning to wonder what he had gotten into.

Kanade had led him through a maze of corridors, and he wasn't even sure how far underground they were any more. She had led him straight into a dozen traps which had alternately tried to crush, burn, impale, or in one case, drown him. They had both been fast enough to exit most of the traps before they went of, and on one occasion, the trap they had set off had caught the clones following behind them.

The latest trap they had set off was a pit-floor trap. They had been jogging along, the clones not too far behind when there had been a click, and the floor had fallen away. Ranma had enough time to grab onto the wall, while Kanade, who was a few steps ahead of him, managed to jump to a still-standing floor section, where she turned and silently waited for him. He'd jumped off the corridor wall towards the wall opposite him, and proceeded to bounce his way down the corridor until he stood on the more stable floor section further down.

Ranma had been running for some time now, and the added exertion required by the jumping between the walls had him out of breath. He turned, breathing heavily, and looked at the chasm he had just avoided. The pit was too deep to jump out of, which would have been impossible anyway, as the bottom was lined with thin metal stakes. Each stake was at least a meter high, very thin, and came to a sharp point. Ranma winced. Whoever built this place wasn't playing around.

Watching from the other side of the pit were the advance elements of the clone force. They eyed the pit with a frowning, calculating expression, and looked up at Ramna.

One of the clones nodded to itself, and started jumping between the two corridor walls towards them, much as Ranma had done. Ranma felt a certain admiration for the clone. It's agility and endurance wasn't anywhere near his, and the trip down the corridor must have taken a lot out of it. It made it's last jump off the wall and came in for it's landing – on a spot contested by Kanade, with her arm blades out.

The clone had her own blades extended, but didn't have a chance. Kanade had her feet planted firmly on the ground, while the clone was exhausted after its long trip down the corridor and was still coming in to land. The clone managed to block Kanade's attack as it came into land, but had put itself off balance in doing so. Another strike by Kanade and the clone fell backwards off the edge of the pit, landing on the spikes with a scream. The spikes tore through her leg and stomach, and the girl's eyes went wide, her hands coming up, trying futilely to remove the bloody spike jutting from her stomach. The girl seemed to have lost interest in Ranma and Kanade and anything other than the spike jutting from her stomach. Her breaths came in pain-filled wimpers, and her hands continued to scrabble with the spike.

Ranma felt sick and turned away. Nobody deserved that, not even the clones. The girls wimpers continued to fill the air and he winced. It was bad enough for him, but what about Kanade? Watching and listening to the agony of someone who looked just like you? Who – a few days ago, was you. That couldn't be easy, especially when you were the one who knocked her in there.

He turned to comfort Kanade, but Kanade was over by the corridor wall, having just levered a large lump of stone from it. Ranma watched in confusion as she slowly waddled towards him, then his eyes widened in comprehension as she leaned out over the pit with it – the rock hanging above the clones head. The clones eyes met Kanade's, and it stretched out an arm towards her, in too much pain to offer more than that wordless plea.

Ranma shouted 'NO!', and dashed forward but he was way too late. The rock dropped from Kanade's hands and fell… seemingly slowly, as Ranma continued rushing forward, too late now to do anything. There was a sickening crunch of bone as it connected with the clones head, and her body jerked violently, sliding further down the spikes.

Ranma rounded on Kanade and shoved her violently against the wall.

'Why the hell did you do that? You killed her. What the hell were you thinking?'

'She was in pain. I stopped it.' She explained emotionlessly.

'There was no need to kill her! She could have healed!'

Ranma was yelling at the girl, and little flecs of spit landed on Kanade's face.

She bought her hands up and broke Ranma's hold on her, pushing him back to regain her space. 'Yes. She would have healed. Then we would have to fight her. She was in a lot of pain, and I stopped that pain. This is best. Best for her and best for us.'

Kanade's voice was no longer emotionless. While it was still soft, there was now a hint of anger in there.

Ranma looked at the girl coldly.

'I see. "Opponents are for killing", huh? You said earlier you're different from your clones, but your not, are you? Anyone that's in your way, and...' he looked in the direction of the dead clone. 'They just become something you have to remove.'

'You don't know how this place works. I didn't kill her. She'll heal. She'll get better. You judge people without enough information. Don't.' Kanade replied.

Ranma glanced briefly at the corpse in the pit. Most of the clones head was gone, only the neck and a stump of the head remained, the rest was shattered bone and brain. Anger helped fight off his nausea.

'Nothing comes back from that. It's dead, and you killed it. Murdered it.'

'It will come back. But I'd have done the same if it didn't. The first clone tried to hurt my friends. Now there's more of them. These clones inflict pain to get what they want. While they continue to exist, they will cause people to hurt and suffer. Whatever I can do to stop them, I'll do.'

Ranma glared at her.

'So you'll inflict more pain to stop them? You'll kill them to stop them hurting people? You don't kill someone just cause of that! When you kill someone, they stay dead, no matter what delusions your suffering from. You say the clones are monsters, but the clones haven't killed anyone yet. You're far worse than they are.

At his words, Kanade went silent, looking at the clones on the opposite edge of the pit - away from him.

'It doesn't matter', she finally said, her voice empty.

'It doesn't matter if you think I'm wrong. It doesn't matter if you think I'm a monster. All that matters is that I do what I know is right. Even if you hate me for it. Even if the others hate me for it, it still needs to be done.

'I should just leave you here', Ranma muttered, staring at the back of the girls head.

'Leave you to fight the clones yourself. You'll deserve whatever they do to you. You don't deserve my help.'

There was a short pause, then Kanade replied.

'I'll do what I need to do with or without your help', Kanade said, but her voice wavered slightly. If Ranma hadn't been angry, he may even have noticed. Then again, being Ranma, probably not.

'Don't worry', he said angrily. 'I'll help you get rid of your clones. Having one of you is bad enough, but it's better than having hundreds of you.

Kanade made no reply, just faced away from him, looking at the clones.

'Well come on. The sooner we get rid of your clones, the sooner I never have to see you again.'

Kanade didn't respond, just continued staring at the clones on the opposite side of the pit. The clones in question had been watching their argument quietly, though quite a few were glaring at Ranma. For the moment, none appeared ready to try and cross, apparently waiting until there was no one preventing their landing.

'Well? Are you ready? I'd rather not be stuck with you any longer than I have to.'

He grabbed her shoulder to spin her around, but she shrugged it off, turning further away from him. He noticed her shoulders were shaking slightly, and Kanade was giving off a quiet snuffling sound. The snuffling sound grew louder and with a shock he realized Kanade was crying. Then, in front of him, Kanade slowly went to pieces.

She went down on her knees, collapsing in on herself and hugging her legs to her chest.

Still facing away from him, her body shook as she silently started sobbing, changing almost instantly from a self-composed, angry teenager into a devastated eight year old girl.

'Aww, jeez'… Ranma's anger melted. If there was one thing he was unable to handle, it was a crying girl.

He still couldn't forgive her for what she'd done. Everything he'd said to her was true. But she was right there in front of him, crying her eyes out. He couldn't bring himself to comfort her, yet he couldn't bring himself to leave her either. He stood there hesitant, while Kanade continued to cry.

'Of course I don't want to hurt them and of course seeing that makes me feel sick but what else can I do? And how dare you say those things about me, and…' Kanade's voice was choked with sobs, and her words belonged to someone far younger than her years. Kanade's sobbing prevented her from speaking further, and she huddled up against herself while the tears streamed from her eyes. Ranma hesitated, then knelt down and put a hand on the girls shoulder in an effort to comfort her.

'But what about the people who took you to the infirmary? When you first fought the clone, you were fighting to protect your friends, weren't you? And that's why your still fighting. As long as you have friends, things can't be that bad.'

It didn't seem to help. 'But they're not my friends. Only one of them is nice to me, the others only tolerate me because of him. They all hate me. They treat me like a monster, and they don't trust me at all. All I've done is try and help them, but they never see that. They only ever see the bad things. The more I try to do, the more I scare them. It's the same for you. You don't even know me but now you think I'm a monster too. What did I ever do to you? Why would you think that? All I did was stop the pain of that other clone. The one who WAS hurting people.'

And the girl went back to sobbing, leaning against him for support. Ranma awkwardly patted her on the back. Part of him wondered why he was even trying to comfort the girl, but there was just some part of Ranma that was unable to stand around and watch while a girl cried her heart out, no matter what she had done. It was just a part of who Ranma was.

'Why do people always get the wrong idea', Kanade managed to get out past her sobs. 'It doesn't matter what I do, what I try…

Why won't anyone be nice to me?'

Ranma frowned. 'No ones nice to you? No one at all?'

'NO!'

Kanade sniffed, eyes puffy and swollen.

'Well, one person. But he's not here. When I need him? He's not here. He's the only person who even sees me as a person, and he's not here. Instead its YOU. The only person to help me hates me.' And she burst into tears again.

'Hey now', Ranma said awkwardly. 'I never said I hated you. Just that you're a monster. That doesn't mean I _hate _you. Just that I don't like you.'

The girl was now honest to goodness bawling her eyes out.

'Well, what about that guy who does care about you', Ranma asked awkwardly. 'Why don't you tell me about him?'

Kanade's sobs slowed as she thought about what to say. After a few minutes, she had composed herself enough to start.

'He came here a few weeks ago.' She said.

'He also didn't know where he was, or what had happened to him.'

She stopped to think, and to wipe her eyes.

'Most people that come here are very angry, and want someone to fight against. Otonashi isn't like that'. At the mention of Otonashi, the smallest of small smiles crossed Kanade's face. It was gone in an instant, but Ranma still saw it.

'Everyone else hates me. Everyone else blames me for what has happened to them. But Otonashi is nice. Even after his friends fought with me, he was still nice. He was the only one to help me feel better after I was fired from being school president.'

She paused, and the smile left her face.

'That was because of his friends. They've always hated me, and they managed to force me to resign. Even when all I've ever done is try and help them…'

Ranma asked 'How did you try and help them?'

And Kanade went quiet.

'Your right' she said eventually. 'At least a little. I was like the clones. I wanted to force them to be happy. I tried to force them to do well at school. To join in the sports clubs. But the more I did, the angrier they became. They kept attacking me to stop me, and I became angry as well. I thought if I could destroy their weapons, destroy how they were attacking me, I could force them to join in at school, and make them happy.'

She looked up. 'But I'm different now. They're already happy, and I never realized it. And…' she hesitated. 'And I want to be happy too. I can't do that when I'm fighting with them all the time.' She offered a sad smile.

'When I was forced to resign from my role as school president, I realized that the fighting was destroying me. I wasn't making anyone happy, and I was just making myself miserable. But by then it was too late. Everyone already saw me as a monster. Otonashi was the only person who was kind to me, the only friend I had.'

As the girl talked, Ranma slowly came to realize why the girl had killed the clone like that. The girl wasn't a monster like he had first thought. She wasn't filled with hate, and she wasn't sadistic, and it was obvious the clones gory death had affected Kanade, even though she believed the clone would heal from it. It seemed the girls violent tendencies came from her delusions about the extent of the clones healing abilities, and her ignorance of how the world worked. Or how people worked, anyway.

What she had done was horrible, but it was still done now. He couldn't go back and stop her from doing it, but he could prevent her from doing it again. And once the clones were gone, he wasn't even sure he'd need to. He was pretty sure that guy she kept mentioning would do that for him.

Kanade hadn't realized it, but every time she mentioned Otonashi, her face had softened, and she smiled a little. Kanade had said he was the only friend she had, and Ranma was sure that this 'Otonashi' person was responsible for why Kanade was no longer the same as the clones. As she spent more time with him, Ranma was certain she'd become less and less violent.

In some ways the girl reminded him of Akane. The girl was quiet and shy, which was very different from Akane of course. But neither girl knew how to show they were interested in someone. Neither girl even knew how to admit it to themselves. He thought of the ongoing tragedy that was his relationship with Akane and silently resolved that for Kanade and Otonashi, it would be different. He'd make sure they didn't leave it too late.

Kanade leaned against Ranma silently now. Her face was still puffy from crying, but she was relaxed. Resting. The clones continued to glare at them from across the pit, but while the pair remained at the other side, none dared to cross.

'Come on then', Ranma said gently. 'The sooner we get rid of these clones, the sooner you can get back to Otonashi.'

Kanade smiled wanly, and he helped her to her feet. They started at a walk, then slowly sped up till they were jogging down the corridor, away from the clones, and towards Guild.

The clones waited until the two had turned the corner. Then they started bouncing, one by one, down the corridor and across the pit.

END CHAPTER 7

That chapter took me four weeks to write. There's about one or two chapters left to write.

I've a little less than eight weeks before I return to Tasmania to continue Uni, so I should easily be able to finish the story before then, even at the glacial pace I've been writing, and it doesn't hurt that I already have the next chapter mapped out and half written. I suspect I'll have trouble with the Epilogue though, as I don't have even a rough idea of how I'll go about it.


	8. Episode VIII Attack of the Clones

**VIII – Attack of the clones**

Ranma and Kanade shot into the opening. The clones were still out of site, but he could hear the patter of their feet echoing through the corridors. The corridor opened into a massive cavern, and Ranma looked around as he continued to run forward. It looked like the cavern had once housed an industrial complex, but there was very little left. It looked like the black and white photo's Ranma had seen of carpet bombed cities during WWII, except there were massive slabs of rock and concrete lying among the rubble, blasted loose from the caverns roof. There wasn't a single building left undamaged, and there were small craters and debris everywhere. The place was perfect for fighting. He could throw around his most powerful techniques here without worrying about destroying anything or hurting anyone… At least, he could once Kanade got clear. They kept moving through the rubble, Ranma following Kanade as she led him towards another entrance to the cavern.

The sound of rubble shifting somewhere behind him told Ramna the clones had made it into the cavern. He looked back, but were unable to see anything. At ground level, the cavern - 'Guild', Kanade had called it - was a maze of rubble and ruined buildings. It was impossible to see more than twenty meters in a straight line. Ramna smiled. If he couldn't see the clones, then they couldn't see him. In a place with so many places to hide, there's no way the clones would even realize Kanade had left.

They reached the far wall of the cavern, and Kanade started working her way along it, examining it for signs of the way out.

'The entrance looks different now', she explained, 'Its harder to find.'

From the faint sounds echoing around the chamber, the clones had broken off their pursuit, having lost site of them, and were slowly making their way across the ruined city.

Then Kanade gave a soft sigh of satisfaction, and moved a large chunk or concrete out of the way of a stairwell. Ranma looked at her questioningly, and she nodded.

'This passage leads back to the surface'. And she ducked into the opening, disappearing down the stairs into the darkness. The faint noise of rubble collapsing echoed throughout Guild, and Ranma turned. It was time to draw their fire.

Ranma had hidden himself on the third floor of what had once been an ammunitions factory. The factory itself was destroyed, but enough remained of one corner of the building for Ranma to hide himself. This particular piece of rubble was the tallest structure remaining, and allowed him a vantage point across the ruined complex. He rarely saw the clones – there was just too much rubble in the way, but from where he lay, he could tell from the occasional sounds of rubble shifting that the clones had spread themselves out and were beginning to search the complex methododically. What he needed was something that would draw their attention. Something that would take their mind off Kanade enough for her to escape their pursuit. Something that would distract them absolutely. Ranma fingered the cloth he had covered himself with. A light brown blanket. Covered in dust, but none-the worse for wear despite the destruction of the complex around it. He grimaced slightly. It wouldn't quite convey the impression he wanted to give, but it would have to do. Ramna stood, and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders like a cloak. Ranma took a few deep breaths to steady himself, then made a small leap up to the top of the corner of the building he'd been hiding in, and waited for the clones to notice him.

He stood there, balancing without effort on the crumbling brick building. With nary a wobble, nor any signs of concern, Ranma waited. From a distance, his improvised cloak, his stance – everything about him radiated confidence and magnificence. Up close, his dust-covered clothes and the nature of his cloak made him look faintly ridiculous, but Ranma was hoping he was high enough off the ground that the clones wouldn't notice.

It took some time for the clones to gather. The large piles of rubble meant it was a while before the clones even noticed him, and also meant that it was impossible to travel safely at any speed through the unstable ruins. Still, after about twenty minutes there was a good one or two hundred clones gathered around him. They had not attacked, apparently wanting to build up enough numbers to prevent any escape attempt.

Finally, one of the clones leapt up to a corner of the floor below Ranma, and spoke.

"Where is Kanade? Tell us, and we won't hurt you."

"You wish to find Kanade?" Ranma asked.

The clone look irritated. "Yes. Why else would we be here?"

Ranma nodded, then looked at her coldly.

"You wish to hurt her further? You haven't caused her enough pain?

The clone glared at him. "We've already explained this to you. It's necessary."

"Well I'm not prepared to let that happen."

And with that opening, Ranma launched into his best Kuno impersonation, unconsciously drawing inspiration from that new Anime he had seen Akane watching a few times. (1)

"I am here to protect the innocent, to punish evildoers, and to uphold the good", and he dramatically threw his 'cape' away, making sure it landed where the clones wouldn't be able to see it.

"Whenever evil-doers try to attack the innocent, wherever bad people gather, I, Ranma Saosome of the Anything Goes school of Martial Arts will be there to stop them.

The clones stared blankly at him.

'You and your gang have caused enough suffering. You intend to spread order, to force students everywhere to give up their freedom and follow school rules and do their homework. In the name of Honour, Justice and Martial Arts, I will punish you."

The clones looked at each other in some confusion.

"Why is he wearing a blanket?"

"Whats with the stupid speech?"

"Maybe he was hit on the head?"

The comments were half whispered, but still carried to Ranma's ears. He flushed, and abandoned the Kuno impersonation.

"Well regardless of that crap, there aint no way I'm letting scum like you find out where she's hiding. Kanade may have once been like you, but she's slowly getting better. There's no way I'm letting you take her back to being as nasty as you lot. You think I'm crazy? Well anyone who tries to make others happy through hurting them is the real nutjob". His words were angry, but it was a deliberately cold anger, carefully controlled. With the words spoken, Ranma leapt from the building, landing on the street near it.

The clones stood in a ring around him, spread so thick there was no way he could jump through them. Irritation at his words showed not just in their faces and body language, but in their aura's as well, pulsating dark-red and radiating a dull heat.

The clones held back for a moment, till one of them muttered "Get him". Glaring at him as one, they rushed towards him with blades raised to strike.Ranma paused a moment to make sure his own aura was still ice-cold, then shot towards them.

If anyone was watching, this would have confused them, as the second he reached them, he backed away from them, sideways. As the circle quickly closed, Ranma worked his way around the outside of it, seemingly attempting to slow it's closure. It didn't help though – there were too many clones for Ranma to even consider blocking their moves. All he could do was dodge their strikes.

Ranma was feeling rather desperate, despite his soul-of-ice technique. The circle was closing far faster than Ranma would have liked, and he wasn't sure if this would even work. Being surrounded by two hundred martial artists almost as good as him, armed with swords, and wanting to kill him was not something he wanted, but if the technique failed, it's exactly what would happen. Fortunately, when the circle finished closing and he delivered the uppercut needed to complete the technique, the Hiryu Shoten Haworked. Certainly not perfectly – the circle had closed too quickly for Ranma to make a good spiral, and the technique was not designed to be used against a crowd this large. But it worked enough to throw all the clones near him up into the air. A normal Hiryu Shoten Hawouldn't have caught him as well, but this was by far the sloppiest he had ever pulled off. He was sucked up along with the clones, and the addition of his cold Ki to the already unstable tornado made it dissipate much faster than it would have otherwise, resulting in Ranma and the clones being scattered across the landscape.

Ranma himself made a safe landing. Mid-air combat was a specialty of his art, and Genma had spent years drumming into him the art of landing safely from a fall. As the ground came rushing up, he moved his arms out so wind resistance pulled him away from the piles of rubble and into a landing on the street. He hit, rolled, and skidded a little. It hurt, but didn't leave him with anything that would prevent him fighting.

He could here thuds throughout the city as the rest of the airborne clones impacted against the ground. One of the clones landed near him, raising a cloud of dust. It had been a controlled decent, Ranma noticed with experienced eyes. It hadn't had any control over where it landed, but it had been able to land on it's feet. And it had managed to land without injuring itself either, as it proved by standing and looking around.

It noticed him almost instantly, and immediately gave a shout. The other clones took up the cry, and once more Ranma was on the run. From the various cries, Ranma could tell the clones were scattered all around him. Still, at least they weren't as close as they had been before. He took off like a shot, keeping his jumps low and fast to prevent the clones tracking his position by sight for as long as possible. The clone who had spotted him raced after him, preferring to run rather than jump. After a few seconds Ranma realized it wasn't trying to catch him, just keep him in sight while the other clones closed in. Ranma grinned at it, while he continued to leap and dodge between the ruins.

"Whats the matter, can't take me yourself? Need to gang up on me before you can win?"

The clone ignored the taunts, just focused grimly on keeping Ranma in site.

And it truly was a challenge. He ducked and weaved through the rubble, and while the boy's jumps allowed the clone to judge where he would land in advance, it also meant he didn't need to navigate the unstable landscape – except for landings, and he somehow always managed to pick landing sites which wouldn't shift or collapse under him. The boy was slowly increasing his lead on the clone when a second clone appeared over the pile of rubble he had been about to leap towards. The boy checked his leap, and took off in a new direction, but lost a large chunk of his lead as he did so.

As Ranma continued to bound his way across the ruins, a third clone joined the pursuit, and he cursed to himself. This just wasn't working. They were too spread out for him to waste his truly powerful techniques, but they were closing too rapidly for him to snipe them off one by one with the moko takabisha**.** The clones were even tougher than Ryoga too – He hadn't seen any of the clones taken out of the fight by the blasts, just knocked backwards.

He spied the jagged wall of the cavern to one side of him, and silently changed direction, heading towards it. The walls were cracked and pitted from the explosion that had destroyed the city, and looked to be enough for him to climb, but still difficult enough to slow or stop the clones. He didn't really need to fight them after all, just keep them chasing him. And he already knew he was better in mid-air combat than them...

He was almost at the cavern wall when a clone shot out of the ruins of a building, heading towards his next landing zone. A small part of his mind realized it was the same building – the same stairwell Kanade had disappeared into almost half an hour ago, but most of him was concerned with not being spitted with the clones sword when he landed.

Except the clone wasn't preparing to attack, Ranma realized. Then the large cut and dried blood on the front of the girls shirt registered, and he realized the girl was Kanade. As he landed, another two clones shot from the open stairwell, heading towards them. Ranma didn't wait for them to arrive, just grabbed Kanade and leapt. Carrying Kanade, his leaps were a lot shorter and a lot slower, but a few more jumps took them to the cavern wall anyway, where the clones had a lot more trouble following.

Ranma made a series of short jumps up the side of the cavern wall, wedging his hands and feet into cracks and catching himself on pipes jutting from the wall. Once they were a hundred meters above the ground, Ranma landed on the remains of a large pipe jutting from the wall, and stopped to rest. The clones had stopped at the base, and were milling about, trying to find a way of getting up to him.

"What are you doing?" Ranma asked Kanade. "Weren't you supposed to head up to your room? Why did you come back?"

"They were waiting for me", said Kanade, somewhat breathless from being carried through the air, but still trying to maintain her calm. "They already had the passage blocked."

Ranma cursed. "Well there's no way to get you through now. They all know exactly where you are".

He looked over the edge. Already, the clones were slowly jumping their way up towards him. The clones would often fail to catch hold of the wall as they landed, and fall back to ground level. The distance wasn't great enough to injure them however, and they would immediately attempt jumping up the cliff-face again. From this distance, they looked like retarded white grasshoppers.

Kanade beside him seemed to be examining the pipe they were sitting on.

"Could we escape through this?" she enquired.

Ranma leant over to check the contents of the pipe, and came face to face with the clone who had been crawling along it. The clones eyes widened in surprise, before her arm-blade extended and she struck at Ranma's head. That moment of surprise was enough for Ranma to pull back though, and the clone missed.

"Nope", Ranma said briefly. He grabbed Kanade and leapt before the clone could exit the pipe and attack them. Below him, the clones were getting better in their rock-leaping attempts, but they were still nowhere near Ranma's speed or agility, even with Kanade hanging onto Ranma's back like a limpet. While the clones slowly inched their way up the walls, Ranma quickly leapt and bounded his way up and away from them.

It was half an hour later, and Ranma was getting tired. Well over half the clones had worked their way up the cavern walls, and even though their progress was slow, it was still constant. He had been forced to climb higher and higher, until he was actually leaping from rocks and cracked concrete jutting from the ceiling of the cavern. Traversing the caverns ceiling had been beyond the limits of the clones, and they glared at him and Kanade from the cavern walls, unable to do anything more than wait for him to return to the walls, or drop back into the city.

It was strenuous enough for Ranma, especially since he was carrying Kanade as well. He hadn't found any places to rest up here and he was slowly getting more tired. The drop was several hundred meters, and while he knew he could survive the impact, he wasn't sure he could land while carrying Kanade without injuring himself. The best place he had found to rest was a ledge barely a centimeter across. The clones that hadn't embarked on the climb were gathered below him. He guessed they were waiting for him to fall.

About five minutes ago the clones had apparently got tired of waiting, and had been milling around, organizing themselves. They now stood below him, facing a single clone who seemed to be their leader. She was talking now. Gesturing animatedly, and pointing up at him. Ranma was too far away to make out more than a distant murmur though. Then the girl extended her blades, and like a ripple of blue light, the rest of the group extended their own blades. Ranma frowned. He wasn't sure what they were up to, but it couldn't be good. When the leader crossed her blades above her head, Kanade stiffened, and her eyes went wide. "The Howling", she whispered in alarm.

Ranma didn't even wait to ask. He shifted his grip on the ledge, grabbed Kanade around the waist and leapt from his ledge towards a rock hanging from the ceiling a stones throw away. Whatever this 'Howling' technique was, he wanted to be as far away from it as possible when the clones completed it.

Below the frantically leaping martial artist, the small army of Tachibana clones slowly raised their hands above their heads, crossing their own blades. The blades widened and thinned, and slowly, then with increasing speed, began to vibrate.

Ranma gasped for breath as he leapt from rock to rock. Climbing the cavern wall and traversing across it's ceiling had been no joke, even without the added weight of another person. Ranma's arms had been starting to burn even before he had needed to move again, but with the rapid pace he was setting himself in order to get out of the range of whatever that technique was, he wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to stay up.

Ranma pulled himself up with his arms, and gave himself a ki-assisted kick off the rock, shooting for a jutting piece of girder sticking through some broken concrete set in the ceiling. Kanade hung on for dear life, her arm around her neck and her knees digging into his hips as though he was a racehorse. He caught the pipe with both hands. His forward momentum carrying the rest of his body up, crashing it into the ceiling. He winced at the impact, but managed to hold on. He looked around for the next place he could leap to, and was just about to jump when the noise hit.

It was loud enough to almost be a physical impact. Actually, it was so strong it WAS a physical impact. As the wave of sound swept over and past them, Kanade and Ranma's clothes rustled, dust worked loose from the wall, and small pebbles fell. Ranma didn't notice though. The noise was so loud, so powerful, so all-pervading that Ranma wasn't capable of noticing anything other than the overwhelming sound. It bored into his brain. He clamped his hands over his head frantically, but it didn't seem to affect anything. The sound went on and on and on. Ranma screamed, but didn't know it.

And suddenly – Just as suddenly as the noise had started, the noise stopped. The silence was so loud, it was deafening. And Ranma realized he was no longer holding onto the ledge, that the whistling noise was the wind going past his ears, and that the ground was coming up awfully fast. Ranma had just enough time to use his ki to strengthen his body before he hit the ground like a meteor. A plume of dust rose into the air, and bits of rubble shot away from the impact point. When the dust cleared, it revealed Ranma lying in the center of a small crater.

He groaned. Painfully.

Everything hurt.

–Everything-

He slowly moved all his extremities one by one, prepared for the sudden flare of pain that would signal a broken bone, and winced when he tried to move his ankle. Ranma couldn't tell if it was broken or just sprained, but there was no way he would be using it any time soon. He couldn't walk, and even moving hurt.

Ranma lay there, waiting for his strength to return to him. Even with the body-strengthening technique he had learned from Ryoga's Bakusai Tenketsu training, he was amazed he'd survived as well as he had. The fall would have been challenging even if he'd been able to control his decent. In the uncontrolled plummet he'd taken, things could have been much worse.

He absently realized Kanade wasn't with him, and looked around painfully for her. As the pain receded, and his cognitive functions returned, Ranma's worry for the girl increased. The girl was skilled, there was no question about that, and had amazing healing abilities. But that didn't prevent the girl getting hurt. A fall this high would result in broken legs, if she was lucky, and there's no way the clones would give her the time needed to heal. He was already somewhat surprised the clones hadn't swarmed them by now. Hadn't they been directly below him when he dropped? He looked around.

Even from where he lay, he could see some clones. But they weren't looking at him, though he lay in plain sight, and they couldn't have helped seeing where he landed. They were all looking somewhere else, all looking in the same direction...

Ranma's eyes followed the clones stares, and his face paled.

Kanade had landed only twenty meters from his own impact site. But 'landed' wasn't really the correct term. There had been a massive girder sticking out of the ground, and Kanade had come down right on where it had snapped through. The jagged metal beam had torn through her torso. Her hips and legs lay at right angles to her upper body, connected only by a thin strip of flesh. There was red everywhere. Some of her internal organs were slowly sliding down the girder, where they had been caught as the girl was torn open. Her landing had smashed the girls head against the concrete, and even to Ranma's relatively inexperienced eyes he could tell the girls skull had been fractured. Kanade's expression was blank, her face splattered with blood and twisted slightly from her fractured skull. There wasn't any signs of conciousness - not that he expected to see any. No-one could survive something like that, and not even the girls miraculous healing powers would be able to bring her back from this.

Ranma didn't even remember moving, but he must have done. He was by Kanade's side now, and had been for some time. He'd pulled her legs around so they looked more attached to her body, and was cradling her. Around him stood the clones. All the clones. There was a lot more than just two hundred clones here now. It seemed almost the entire cavern was full of clones. And they all just stared at him. Well, at Kanade. Ranma was past caring about the clones though. He wasn't much capable of thinking at all. At least, not clearly.

All he could think about was Kanade. But somehow, Akane was mixed in there. It was Kanade in his arms, but he somehow saw Akane's body there too, blackened and twisted and burnt. Kanade's death let him somehow know this wasn't the first time he had failed in protecting a girl. Wasn't the first time his best hadn't been enough. Although he couldn't quite remember it, he knew he'd failed Akane as well. He hugged Kanade tighter - what was left of her - and closed his eyes in grief and despair. Because of him, Kanade was dead. And Akane. Akane was gone too. When it mattered – when it really mattered, he just wasn't good enough. What good were his skills if he couldn't even save those he was there to protect? Memories of Akane flashed across his mind – Akane laughing with her friends, Akane angry at him for calling her uncute, Akane scowling ferociously as she trained for the rhythmic gymnastics challenge. All memories touched with the grief of knowing he'd never see her again. Knowing he'd never be able to tell her how he felt. He'd always meant to. And that was the worst part. Now it was just too late.

The clones watched in silence as the grief stricken boy raised his head and howled and sobbed out his grief. Eventually, one of the clones stepped forward.

"Kanade will come back. You have not killed her."

Ranma looked at the clone in disbelief and shook his head. He was too tired to deal with the delusions of the clones. Tired beyond all imagining.

"Go away", he muttered gruffly, and turned his head.

The clone walked back into his view, and held out it's arm. "Come with us. Leave Kanade. You are a good fighter, but you cannot win. Leave her with us."

Ranma clutched Kanade's body protectively, but the clones words echoed in his ears. "Cannot win… Cannot win…"

Well, he couldn't win, could he?

Akane was dead.

Dead.

Gone.

And Kanade also. He had spent his life on learning the Art. Learning it so he could protect those who needed it. And he had failed. Failed twice now. And he wasn't even capable of protecting Kanade's body. Not through fighting at least.

And Ranma spoke. Not with confidence, but with weariness. With a bone-deep weariness that said he was tired of fighting. Tired of losing. Tired of putting everything he had into protecting the girls, and failing anyway.

"I failed to protect Kanade in life. But I won't fail to protect her in death."

Despite the words, they were spoken almost apathetically.

The clone standing in front of him was the only one close enough to hear. She sighed. The clones were not completely heartless, and none of them really wished to fight the boy who had already put so much into protecting their nemesis, especially since it was obvious to all his offensive abilities had dropped to zero.

They didn't rush forward. There was no need. The boy was unable to walk, so exhausted he could barely stand anyway, and had the remains of Kanade on his lap, which would slow down any offensive or defensive move he made. A single clone would be enough to take him out now. The clone who had spoken earlier walked up to him, ready for some trick. Some last ditch technique. But he wasn't even looking at her, had just huddled up against the cooling body of Kanade after his words. Her blade extended with a quiet 'shing', and the boy turned to look at her calmly. And his face WAS calm now. The utter despair he was feeling was only visible if you looked closely at his eyes. The clone paused, giving the boy one last chance to give up. The boy focused on her blade, then on her face. And said, wearily, **"**Perfect Shi ShiHokodan**"**

The clone watched with cautious curiosity as the red ball of Kislowly drifted up from the boy. Was it supposed to be an attack? Was it supposed to be some sort of threat? The clone declined to move any further forward, taking a few steps back. The ball was still rising, but had grown. Was still growing. It had been about the size of a basketball when it had first exited the boy, but now it was the size of a car, and still growing. And still rising. The clone watched it for a while, before it lost interest. The ball of Ki continued to grow, and continued to rise… but did nothing else. Whatever it might be, it was no threat. The clone moved forward again, quietly preparing to finish the boy as painlessly as possible. Even if he was misguided, he deserved that much. Above her, unnoticed, the ball had stopped rising, and began it's decent.

The clone had placed it's blade against Ranma's chest, and was preparing it's strike when the Ki-blast landed, now the size of a small city block.

Ranma watched apathetically as the Ki-blast detonated, and his world turned white. He could feel the emotion-based blastwaves lash at him, but in his apathetic state they went right through him. He was too far gone to feel anything now. The howling despair he had felt before was gone now, and he just felt empty. He clutched the remains of Kanade and watched with soulless eyes as his perfect Shi Shi Hokodanripped apart the city.

He didn't know how long the explosion lasted, and wasn't in a state to take any notice anyhow. When the howling stopped, when the white light of the explosion faded, when the heat and the dust slowly began to settle, Ranma merely blinked. If he was capable of feeling surprise, he would have been shocked.

The results of his technique had been far beyond anything he had expected. It had put Ryoga's efforts to shame. There was nothing left of the city at all. The buildings had been in ruins before. Now they were gone. Instead, the cavern was filled with a new feature – an immense crater, stretching almost wall to wall, and at least fifty meters deep. And right in the middle – right in the center of the crater, sat Ranma. His apathy must have protected him, he thought, not really caring. He looked down at Kanade in his arms. It must have protected them both. The girder had survived also, he noted numbly. Though the top was too far away to be protected completely – it had bent over from the force of the explosion, and had formed an inverted 'V', the jagged end that had torn Kanade apart now buried in finely-pulverized rubble.

There was no hint of the clones. Anything that could do that to the city would have vaporized them. Ranma looked down at Kanade's remains once more. Even though he hadn't protected her life, he HAD managed to protect her death. A small, grim smile crossed his face, and a tiny hint of satisfaction made itself known. They had managed to get rid of the clones after all. Not that it mattered now.

With a weary sigh, Ranma dragged himself to his feet. Limping painfully, he placed what remained of Kanade at the base of the girder, positioning her so she was lying as naturally as possible. Then slowly, painfully, he built a cairn over her – covering her body with rocks. Ranma had to search far and wide for rocks big enough to use – the force of the explosion had reduced most of the rubble to small pebbles and dust. His twisted ankle made dragging the rocks back even more difficult, but he didn't even consider stopping. Truth be told, he was that exhausted, that close to just dropping where he stood, that he wasn't really capable of considering anything. Only an innate stubbornness prevented him from giving into the pain and laying down to rest.

On his search for the last rock for the cairn, Ranma noticed something that had somehow survived the carnage, and smiled grimly. The blanket he had used as a cape earlier was laying half-buried in the dirt. It seemed a fitting shroud, and he bought it back with him, shaking the dirt from it before draping it over the cairn of rocks with a solemn air.

He closed his eyes in front of the makeshift grave, saying his goodbyes.

The grave wasn't just Kanade's resting place. He couldn't remember how Akane had died, but the grave was hers as well, a place to lay his memories of her. The grave also marked the passing of his dreams. A place to bury his naive belief that if he was a good enough martial artist, he would always be able to protect those who needed it.

A single tear slid down his cheek, and he turned to go. A movement out by the edge of the crater made him look up, and his eyes focused on the lone surviving clone as it rushed towards him from the crater wall.

He fell into a defensive stance, or at least tried to. He was exhausted beyond measure, his ankle shot a bolt of agony up his leg every time he moved it, and after his failure in protecting Kanade and realization of the death of Akane, he didn't much feel like fighting.

Fortunately, the clone seemed far from being in perfect shape herself. She must have been right on the edges of the blast. Her school uniform was ragged and torn where the blast had caught it, and she wasn't running very fast. The girls blades kept flickering in and out of existence, and every so often she would stumble. Yet she still came on. Ranma smiled grimly. If he wasn't feeling so absolutely empty, he'd feel some admiration for the girls determination.

This time, when they were close enough to attack, no words were spoken. No insults traded, nor any attempts to parley. They were both too exhausted for that.

The clone swung a clumsy strike with one of her swords, and Ranma jumped awkwardly away from it, keeping his weight off his bad foot. The clone recovered from it's wide swing, and this time advanced on Ranma more carefully, holding it's blades up in a guard position. Ranma half-limped, half-hopped away from it backwards, before realizing even in the clones exhausted state, it could walk faster than he could hop. He stopped, and the clone lunged forward, attempting to pierce his chest. The strike was as clumsy as the previous one; a five year old could have done better. Ranma's counter was better, but not much. He was far too gone for any degree of finesse. He half fell, half leapt forward, and slapped away the blade with his hand, headbutting the girl as they ran into each other.

She fell backwards, stunned. Unable to prevent his own fall due to his ankle, and more than a little stunned himself, Ranma fell on top of her.

They lay there for a while, looking more like lovers than adversaries. Neither really wanted to move, but neither was willing to give up, either. Ranma knew he had her on the ropes now. He was lying on top of her, so she couldn't attack him with her blades. So surely he could just rest here a little before he finished her off… wait for a little more of his strength to return.

A tickling sensation from his arm drew his attention, and he bought it up in front of him to look at it.

It was bleeding.

There was a deep cut on his arm. Not deep into tissue, but at a sharp angle, so a large flap of skin hung loose. He obviously hadn't slapped the blade away as well as he'd thought.

Movement beyond his arm caught his eye, and he raised himself on his hands to see it over the rubble better, ignoring the blood that trickled down his wrist to pool in the dirt. It was another clone, coming in to attack. This one was even more damaged, and was using a length of pipe as a walking stick to limp towards him. Ranma wondered why it was even bothering. Even Kasumi could defend herself against this one. Though in his damaged state, he might have trouble. Why were they so persistent? And just how many of them were there left anyway?

Movement below him made him look down, and Ranma dropped back down onto the girl, who had pulled her arm free when he had raised himself, and was swinging her sword at him. The blade swung through where his neck had been a second ago, then the clone bought it down and tried to cut him where he lay, but the way the blade jutted from her arm meant it wouldn't reach anything that close to her. Ranma clung to the girl while she beat his back with her fists in futile attempts to finish him.

But he couldn't stay there, he realized. That other clone was coming, plus who knew how many others, that might not be as damaged. If he was to have any chance at all, he needed to finish this quickly.

He gathered himself, and rolled himself off the girl, pushing against her arms so she couldn't attack him as he came off her. He rolled several feet away, and the girl made her way to her feet, gingerly holding her head.

Ranma couldn't have made his way back to his feet even if he wanted to, with his ankle, but with what he planned, that wouldn't be necessary. He hoped.

The girl walked slowly to Ranma's new resting place, regarding him as he lay there staring up at her… then fell forward onto him, her blades extended like skewers.

He gritted his teeth and raised his hand to launch a Moko Takabisha blast her away, but nothing happened. No Ki surge, not even the smallest glimmer of light. He had no confidence left at all.

Ranma had just enough time for a moment of horror before the clone landed and her blades tore a path of agony into his chest. Ranma grimaced, and as his world turned black, he reflected bitterly that even his partial victory of getting rid of the clones would be denied.

**here**

Time passed. The remaining clones limped into the center of the crater. Conversed with the remaining clone. Examined the boy. The grave. Waited for their injuries to heal.

They continued to talk, and eventually, came to some sort of consensus. One of the clones lifted the boy into a firemans hoist, and wearily began to carry him towards the surface. One of the clones remained with the cairn of stones that covered Kanade's body, ready to subdue her when she came back. And the rest of the clones headed towards the cave system which led to the surface, getting into position to ambush the delinquents, should they come to rescue her.

More time passed, and the sounds of combat started to echo from the lip of the crater, where the entrance to the cavern was. The clone set to guard Kanade turned to face it expectantly, leaving Kanade's grave at her back, unguarded.

Shortly after, the blanket Ranma had draped over the grave rose, then settled itself silently upon the white-haired girl who now lay under it. Kanade frowned and shifted against the rocks pressing into her, then drifted back into a healing sleep, awaiting the arrival of Otonashi.

STORY NOTES

(1)_ 'And with that opening, Ranma launched into his best Kuno impersonation, unconsciously drawing inspiration from that new Anime he had seen Akane watching a few times.'_

I'm not quite sure when Sailor Moon was released, except I think it was in the 80's, around the same time Ranma was. So for him, it would be a new anime.


	9. Chapter 9

EPILOGUE

Ranma shuddered, and crawled painfully towards where Akane had been. He was red from burns all over, and blisters were forming in patches across his skin, but he still moved painfully forward. Akane had been much closer to the blast than him.

He'd never expected Saffron to explode like that when he died. He'd never…

Ranma choked out a sob and closed his eyes, squeezing out a tear. But he kept on crawling. Perhaps he was wrong. Akane had survived amazing odds before.

He kept crawling and crawling, inch by painful inch, till his hand ran into something. He cracked an eye, and looked at the blackened thing in front of him. A moment of incomprehension, then realization of what it was. Who it had been. And as despair overtook him, Ranma screamed.

"Noooooooo!"

His own yell woke him, and Ranma gasped. Eyes flickered around widely as he sought to determine where he was, the nightmare causing his heart to beat wildly.

He wasn't in the wilds of China any more, he could tell that instantly. It looked more like one of the corridor from... From what had happened yesterday. With the army of clones, and...

Ranma paused.

They'd stabbed him. He'd died. He'd known it, cause he had felt his life ebbing away, like when Saffron…

He had died twice.

He checked his body. His ankle. His chest.

Everything was fine. He didn't even have any bruises. The only sign anything had happened to him was the large cut in the front of his shirt, and the corresponding cut in the back of it.

He had died. Twice. Just what the hell was going on here?

FIN

AUTHORS NOTES

Well it's been a long time getting here, and it's the first long-ish fic I've written. Thanks for waiting, and I hope you enjoyed the ride.

I'd like to thank both Another Duck, who's comments helped to improve the grammar of this fic, and Claymade, who's 'Dark Lords of Nerima' went a long way to inspiring the style of this fic.

There might be a sequel someday, but not any time soon. Maybe in a year or two…


	10. Deleted Scenes

CHAPTER 7 – CAVES AND TRAPS

The corridor they were running down appeared to be an old mining shaft. It was rough-hewn from the rock, and had wooden supports every few meters to hold up the ceiling. Oil lanterns gave off little pools of light, and wooden planks in the middle of the corridor prevented them stumbling over the uneven rock. Ranma and Kanade had slowed down from their full-paced sprint earlier, and were now running along at a fairly easy pace. Ranma could have kept running much faster, but Kanade didn't have the stamina to keep up. Fortunately, her clones had a similar level of endurance, and weren't gaining any ground. In the dim light of the corridor, Ranma couldn't make them out, but from their heavy breathing they seemed to be about ten meters behind him. Every so often they would put in a bit of effort to catch up, he carried Kanade until they dropped back again.

They had been running down the corridor for about ten minutes when the board Ranma stepped on clicked. That was the only warning Ranma got, but it was enough. His danger sense going into overdrive, he leapt forward, dragging Kanade to the ground as he fell. The ceiling slid to one side above them, and a massive block of stone swung down the passageway on a pendulum. A cut off scream and a sickening crunch of bones told them it had caught at least one of the clones behind them. Ranma helped Kanade to her feet and they started moving again.

'What the hell was that?' Ranma asked wildly.

'That was a trap'. Kanade examined the new graze on her elbow with some annoyance.

'Why didn't you tell me there was a trap? Are there any more?

Kanade just shrugged, and said 'Next time I will tell you', before she started running again.

Ramna shook his head in irritation, and ran after her.

It was half an hour later, and Ranma was beginning to wonder what he'd gotten into. They'd encountered the ruins of another trap – all the planking had been destroyed underfoot, and the giant ball that had destroyed them was wedged against a narrowing of the corridor. Fortunately it wasn't in the direction they needed to take; Kanade had led him down a side corridor.

Ranma had then been led through a virtual maze of corridors branching off from each other. The sounds of pursuit faded as the clones spread out to search the network of corridors. The last of the corridors had ended some time ago, depositing Kanade and Ranma into what appeared to be a natural cave system. A river ran through the middle of it, and had deposited enough sand on the bank that they didn't have to worry about stumbling over rocks here either.

Despite the cave appearing natural, there were signs of human interference here too – the most obvious being the flaming torches set into the walls to provide light. There were other signs too though – Steps carved into rock faces to allow them to change levels, pillars of carved limestone supporting the roof.

And as they rounded the corner of the cave, Ranma found another. The cave had split off from the river, the river going underground, so the cave had narrowed to a much smaller passage, rather than the cavern it had been. This passage had been blocked off by a door, set in modern looking (Check description from episode 2)

Ranma gingerly pressed the 'open' button, and sprang back when it hissed, gears cranked, and it ponderously opened out. On the other side of the door was a short stretch of corridor – perhaps ten meters? – that ended in another doorway. Ranma could see more of the cave through the open doorway. The walls of the corridor were tiled, the room itself lit with flurecent lights, though no power cables were evident. He looked at the room, and eyed Kanade dubiously. (wrong word).

'Have you been through here before?'

Kanade nodded.

'Was there a trap?'

Kanade shrugged. 'My passage did not set off a trap. The remains of someone else were lying on the floor though.'

Ranma wondered idly how she could be so cavalier about death, but dismissed it as unimportant. They had to concentrate on keeping themselves alive at the time being.

'So is there another way through? Another way to this 'Guild?'

The girl hesitated, then nodded, and pointed back the way they had come. 'That way.'

They had made it back to the river before the clones, fortunately. There was a place where the river was quite shallow, and they leapt across

CHAPTER 9 – SAFFRON FIGHT

Saffron let loose another blast at Ranma, and once more Ranma dodged, flying ever closer to the phoenix-king. Somewhere behind him the ki-blast detonated against the mountain, causing a minor landslide. Saffron almost summoned yet another fire-blast, but realized he wouldn't have time before the boy was on him. Sighing in frustration at the impudent mortal attempting to assault him, he instead darted to one side, much to the surprise of one Ranma Saotome, who sailed past with a comical expression of surprise on his face. If Saffron hadn't been in the midst of a murderous rage, it may have even raised a chuckle from him. Instead, he summoned a fire-blast to follow the irritating man-thing as it plummeted back to earth, then swooped down with his kinjakan to finish Ranma off.

Ranma was in trouble and he knew it. The ground was coming up awfully fast, and that slowly growing roaring sound in his ears could only be another of the damned demi-god's blast things. He was trying to think of a way of escaping the situation when he noticed something moving at his fast approaching landing site. Akane. But what was she doing here? And more importantly, how on earth was he supposed to protect her from the Ki-blast that was even now singing his back? It wasn't just enough for him to survive the landing, he had to shield her as well? He shivered slightly as the cold mountain air blew past him, contrasting sharply with the hot blast chasing him down… and it gave him an idea. He focused his own ki, and pushed it into his aura, warping and shaping the air around him as he fell. He stopped trying to slow his decent, instead speeding up. The cold air circled around him, and around the blast right on his heels. At least it wasn't getting any closer now he was actively trying to go faster. He shot towards the ground, and he could see Akane turn to look at him, gaping as both he and the blast behind him shot towards her. She turned to run, but it was too late.


End file.
